5 Mobile SEO Mistakes That Are Sabotaging Your Mobile Marketing Efforts

5 Mobile SEO Mistakes That Are Sabotaging Your Mobile Marketing Efforts

SEO remains one of the most popular topics on the internet. Why?

Because webmasters are always fighting to get search traffic – the better your pages are optimized for search engines, the more chances you have to rank your content, and the more traffic you’ll drive to your site.

That’s not all; it equally means that you’ll be making a lot of money (provided your site is optimized for conversions).

It doesn’t matter whether you are in blogging, content marketing, affiliate marketing, social media, or e-commerce, the challenge is the same…

…Every website owner is searching for the right skills required to make their sites perform better in SERPs (search engine result pages).

However, while implementing SEO strategies, one area most people often fail to give adequate attention to is mobile SEO.

In today’s marketing era, mobile marketing is becoming increasingly popular. Any marketer who’s not yet paying attention to mobile traffic is not doing SEO correctly.

As more and more people are starting to use mobile devices for every task that used to be only possible on desktop, one thing has become apparent:

The mobile web is gradually taking over the internet.
And, I’m not talking about just surfing the net. I’m talking about everything from browsing social networking sites, checking emails, collaborating with teams, and making purchases.

According to statcounter.com, mobile browsers enjoy 53.03% of the total number of people who access the internet, while desktops have 42.19% and tablets have 4.78%.


Furthermore, in an article on the Hallaminternet blog, Jonathan Ellins stated that:

“In 2016, we saw an increasing number of people using tablets and mobile devices instead of desktop computers to browse the internet. On average, the combined number of mobile and tablet users finally surpassed the number of desktop users globally and the upwards trend is continuing.”

Therefore, it’s important for site owners and internet marketers to pay more attention to the mobile version of their sites so that they will benefit more from these mobile users.

However, just like desktop marketing, mobile marketing requires the right SEO tactics to get you a significant position in SERPs.

Sadly, a lot of marketers still make huge mobile SEO mistakes that end up robbing them of a considerable chunk of internet traffic – thereby leaving a lot of money on the table.

What Are These Mobile SEO Mistakes?
1. You’re Not Using A Responsive Design

What exactly is a responsive web design, and why does it matter?

According to HuffingtonPost:

“A responsive design simply means a website that has been constructed so that all of the content, images and structure of the site remains the same on any device. For example, when a user accesses a site on their desktop, they are getting the full view of the site. But when that same user goes to visit the site from their smartphone or tablet, the site will retract to fit on the smaller screen.”

Responsive Design Example

(Source: Freshparks)

In 2015, Google started taking a website’s mobile presence as one of its ranking factors – this alone can justify why using a responsive design is essential.

Typically, one of the reasons why responsive blogs perform better in search rankings is because they provide a better user-experience over websites that are not mobile-friendly.

Additionally, Google likes the fact that responsive sites use a single URL as opposed to using different URLs for separate versions of a website.

With a responsive site, you no longer have to worry about creating different websites for different devices; your website will run perfectly across all devices.

Apart from all these obvious facts, there are also other vital reasons why you should instantly switch to a responsive design right now.

Responsive sites:

Enable you to reach more clients and customers on smaller devices (smartphones and tablets).
Decrease labor and costs as you no longer have to run separate websites for various devices.
Track and report analytics from one place.
Increase customer satisfaction, which will eventually lead to higher sales and conversions.
Stay ahead of the competition as over 44 percent of fortune 500 companies not yet mobile ready.
Finally, if your site is not responsive, you will lose out on mobile traffic as a lot of mobile users who try to access your site will quickly hit the back button and leave.

Further reading:

How To Make A User-Friendly Blog For More Conversions
Find Out How Responsive Web Design Equals To SEO benefits
How To Radically Increase The Overall Performance Of Your Responsive Website?
2. Your Mobile Pages Load Slowly

Just as people who access your site on desktop computers hate slow loading pages, so do mobile users.

According to Think With Google:

“Slow loading sites frustrate users and negatively impact publishers. While there are several factors that impact revenue, our model projects that publishers whose mobile sites load in 5 seconds earn up to 2x more mobile ad revenue than those whose sites load in 19 seconds.

Mobile Pages Load Slowly

The same study also observed 25% higher ad viewability and 70% longer average sessions for sites that loaded in 5 seconds vs. 19 seconds.

If your site takes too long to load, visitors might leave before they’ve even seen anything.

Apart from annoying visitors, Google also punishes slow loading pages and ranks them very low in SERPs.

In a blog post on the Appticles blog, Alexandra Anghel stated that, “when your mobile website or app is clumsy or slow, 29% of smartphone users will immediately switch to another site or app if it doesn’t satisfy their needs (that is, they can’t find information or it’s too slow).”

Below are the basic things you can do to boost your mobile page speed:

Reduce server response time.
Load above the fold content before below the fold content.
Enable browser caching.
Optimize your images.
Minify JavaScript, CSS, and HTML
Activate Google AMP.
Further reading:

Check How Fast The Mobile Version Of Your Website Is Loading: Free Tools
7 Smart Ways To Reduce Your WordPress Blog Loading Time
How To Reduce WordPress Database Size To Improve Blog Performance
3. You Have Blocked Files

Internet marketers understand how critical search engine indexing is to their website search experience. This is why they always do their best to help the search engines to properly crawl and index their sites, spending time and money in off-page and on-page optimization such as website structure, content, links, meta descriptions, tags, image optimization, etc.

But, while it’s obvious that high-quality website optimization is paramount to success in search, not paying attention enough to the technical aspect of SEO can be disastrous.

If you’re not familiar with terms like robots.txt, XML sitemaps, microformats, and meta robots tags, you might be putting yourself in a lot of trouble.

Let’s focus on one of those terms right now – robots.txt.

Robots.txt is simply a text file whose function is to instruct search engine robots (also known as spider, bots, or crawlers) how to properly crawl and index web pages. Typically, the robots.txt file is placed in the top level directory of your site so that the bots can easily access its instructions.

Unfortunately, in an attempt to optimize a site and rank higher, some site owners make a big SEO blunder by shutting out the Googlebot from indexing their files.

How do they do that? They restrict Google’s access to their CSS, JavaScript, and image files.

And if your robots.txt file disallows the Googlebot from accessing crucial elements of your site, your rankings will definitely drop.

To prevent this potential disaster, always check your robots.txt files to see that no essential elements are disallowed. You can also test your robots.txt files on the Google Search Console to be sure that all is well.

Further reading:

 How To Fix Googlebot Cannot Access CSS & JS Warning
4. You Don’t Have Rich Snippets

Let me ask you a question:

Have you ever noticed that when performing a search on Google, some listings often look more attractive and sexier than others? For example, check out the screenshot below:

Rich Snippets example

See that extra information like the star rating? That’s a rich snippet.

Rich snippets take relevant information from your blog and display them on your website’s listing in the search results, apart from the usual page title, URL, and meta description. This additional information can include star ratings, images, author information, etc.

Rich snippets are often neglected in SEO strategies, and this is because they are more tedious to implement than traditional on-page SEO tactics. But if you can spend a little time practicing how to use them, it will be well worth it in the end.

According to Search Engine Land, adding this extra piece of information to your Google search listings captures the eyes of viewers, and they can increase your click-through rates by 30 percent, even if you’re not occupying the first position.



(source)

Google loves websites or blogs that provide rich, accurate, and instant answers to queries. If you want to be the website that provides those instant answers, you should use Schema.org on your site.

Finally, using these kinds of rich snippets increases your CTR because it makes your site more attractive to users, and Google tends to reward these helpful additions.

Further reading:

4 Best Rich Snippets Plugins for WordPress
How To Use Rich Snippets, Structured Markup For High Powered SEO
5. Your Multimedia Content Is Causing Problems

Adding videos and multimedia content to your site is a great way to make your blog posts better and more engaging. However, you need to be sure that your site is able to play this content without any issues.

In a situation where this multimedia slows down your site’s speed or isn’t playable, this could pose a great challenge to your mobile marketing efforts.

Back in the day, all the videos you’ve ever watched on the internet were channeled via a 3rd party plugin such as RealPlayer, QuickTime, or Flash. With these great plugins integrated into the various available web browsers, almost invisibly, the viewer wasn’t concerned about how they were seeing the video.

Nowadays, problems occur when the audience suddenly attempts to view a video on an unsupported platform. This is especially problematic for mobile users who may not be using a supported browser.

One good way to overcome this problem is to follow Google’s advice by using HTML5, especially if you want to display animated content on your website.

With an ever growing number of people viewing video content on mobile devices, ensuring video can be seen on any device and with any browser should be of great concern to every webmaster.

Further reading:

How To Embed YouTube Videos In WordPress (It’s easier than you think)
How to Fix Mixed Content Error in WordPress After Adding SSL Certificate
Mobile SEO Mistakes
Because the mobile internet is so ubiquitous, optimizing the mobile version of your website will not only improve traffic, it will also go a long a way in improving your income as well.

Do not wait until you’ve lost your users before implementing changes on your site. People love sites that load fast, have responsive designs, and have obviously been optimized for their specific platform.

And in doing this, Google will reward you.

Implement the tips we have provided in this post, and you will surely notice some level of improvement in your SERPs.

What things do you do to improve your mobile SEO? What tips can you add to this list? Let me hear your thoughts in the comments below!

Like this post? Share it with your friends!

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A Detailed Comparison of Best Position Trackers SEO Tools With Results

A Detailed Comparison of Best Position Trackers SEO Tools With Results

Let’s not beat around the bush here. Irrespective of what some professionals may claim, search engine rankings are still the best indicators of SEO progress.

Sure, on their own, they’re nothing more than a means to an end – increasing online visibility, getting more sales or achieving any other outcome you want for your business.

And it is not possible if your rankings aren’t up there.

It is crucial that you can properly track and monitor your domain’s positions for relevant keywords.

The thing is, given the plethora of choices, how do you choose the best keyword ranking tool?

Well, that’s what I intended to find out. I decided to compare some of the popular rank trackers in the market – Moz, RankRanger, SEMrush, SE Ranking, and Ahrefs – to establish which offers the best value.

Without any further ado, here’s what I discovered.

Comparison criteria:
Here’s the functionality I took into consideration when comparing rank trackers.

How many search engines and devices does each tool track
How many keywords could I monitor
Can I track rankings by location (and how many locations could I specify)
Can I track rankings for my business name in local listings
Can I compare my rankings with the competition
Could the tool suggest additional competitors for me
Can I see which keywords trigger a featured snippet
How often do they update the data
Can a tool alert me of unusual ranking fluctuations
What sort of reports can I generate
I know there’s a lot to cover so let’s dive right in.

Comparison Results
#1. Search Engines and Devices
Search Engines


It goes without saying that we are all eager to know how our sites rank on Google.

But depending on various factors, like your location or business type, for example, you might want to track the rankings on other search engines as well.

And as it turns out, rank trackers differ greatly when it comes to search engines they target.

For example, Moz allows you to track rankings on Google, Google Mobile, Bing and Yahoo.

Track ranking in Search Engines

SEMrush and Ahrefs, however, track only Google (and Google mobile) rankings.

SE Rankings on the other hand, also tracks rankings in Yandex, Yandex mobile and YouTube.

Serach-Engine-Tracking-by-SE-ranking

And finally, RankRanger offers an impressive list of search engines, including Google, Google mobile, Yahoo, Yandex, Bing, YouTube, Google Maps, Google Play, iTunes, Google Jobs, Haosou, Sogou, Baidu, Seznam, Atlas, and others.

Searcg-Engine-Tracking-by-Rankranger

However, the problem is, RankRanger allows you to pick only two search engines from the list. And so, although you have a plethora of choice, you can’t avail the options in full.

Verdict: If you look at the list of supported engines, RankRanger is miles ahead of the rest. Unfortunately, its restriction to two sources lands it in line with other tools.

Devices
All rank trackers allow monitoring rankings for desktop and mobile devices separately. However, SEMrush is the only one that splits mobile devices between smartphones and tablets, offering a more in-depth look at your mobile rankings.

Verdict: SEMrush for offering a more detailed analysis of mobile rankings.



#2. Keywords
Depending on the size of your site, and the business, you might want to track anything from a handful of keywords to thousands or more.

And particularly, if you’re in the latter category, it is crucial that the rank tracker you choose will not force you to drop some of the data.

Here’s how my selected rank trackers stack up regarding the number of keywords they allow you to track:

(Note: I’m quoting official information from those companies here, covering various price plans these products offer)

SEMrush Moz Ahrefs SE Ranking RankRanger
From 500 to 5000 From 300 to 7500 From 300 to 10000 From 50 to 20000 From 350 to 2000
Verdict: A tricky choice as the best tool in this case largely depends on your business requirements.

So, instead of offering a strict verdict, I thought I’d compare the cost per keyword for each tool (using their smallest paid plan).

Price per month Keywords Price per Keyword
MOZ 99 300 0.33
Ahrefs 99 300 0.33
SEMrush 99 500 0.20
SE Ranking 29 250 0.12
RankRanger 69 350 0.20
#3. Location Tracking
If you run a local business, it is crucial that you know how your keywords perform in your immediate locale. And although it’s not a functionality I’d personally be interested in, I compared whether rank trackers from my list can deliver local rankings.

And I was pleasantly surprised to find out that every tool on the list allows tracking rankings by location.

SEMrush Moz Ahrefs SE Ranking RankRanger
Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
However, they all offer a different number of location targets you could specify and track. What’s more, in some of the tools, the actual number also depends on a price plan you’ve selected.

Here’s the breakdown of how many locations per website you can specify:

SEMrush Moz Ahrefs SE Ranking RankRanger
10 4 From 1 to unlimited, depending on a price plan 5 2
Verdict: Ahrefs beats everyone else with their unlimited package.

#4. Tracking Business Name in Local Listings
Similarly, if you run (or help promote) a local business, you should know how it ranks for its business name.

Therefore, a rank tracker you choose should give you the ability to monitor rankings for the business name.

From the ones I’ve compared, SEMrush, SE Ranking and RankRanger offer this functionality.

RankRanger

Monitor-Business-Name-ranking

SE Ranking

Search Engine Settings

SEMrush

SEMRush Position Tracking Settings

Moz doesn’t include it in its PRO package. However, you can get it if you sign up for their Moz LOCAL tool. To use it, however, you need to buy a separate license.

Ahrefs, however, doesn’t allow tracking a business name.

Verdict: A tie between SEMrush, SE Ranking and RankRanger.

#5. Competitor Rankings
Similarly, I analyzed which rank tracker allows me to compare my rankings with the competition and build an image of my competitive landscape.

Ahrefs, SE Ranking and RankRanger allow to compare up to 5 competitors.

SE Ranking

SE Ranking

Ahrefs

Competitor-analysis-with-Ahrefs

Rank Ranger

Competitor-analysis-with-Rankranger

SEMrush allows adding up to 20 competitors. You can also add specific competitors for each keyword, making the tool’s competitive report highly relevant.

Competitor-analysis-with-SEMrush

Finally, with Moz, you can track rankings of up to 3 competitors. However, you can also add them from the organic report.

Competitor-analysis-with-Moz

Verdict: SEMrush. If you need to monitor ranking changes for a large group of competitors, the tool delivers the greatest opportunity.

#6. Additional Competitor Research
I believe most will agree with me on this:

Companies you consider immediate competitors aren’t necessarily the ones you battle for the searcher’s attention.

Additional websites might be ranking for your keywords, trying to steal your traffic and revenue.

And so, it is crucial that you understand who your online competitors are (not just the market ones).

And as it turns out, there are only two tools on the list that offer this functionality:

SEMrush

Competitors-report-of-SEMrush

SEMrush’s competitor report includes all domains that target the same keywords as you, not just the ones that battle for the same organic traffic.

Plus, it provides a wealth of additional information about each domain that you could use to plan strategies to overcome them in rankings.

SE Rankings

Competitor-report-of-SE-ranking

SE Rankings offers a list of domains targeting similar keywords as you to choose from.

Verdict: SEMrush and SE Ranking because of their holistic approach of looking at other sources than just organic to get the full picture of the competitive landscape.

#7. Featured Snippets Report
Featured snippets are one heck of a deal.

After all, as some SEOs suggested, the featured snippet is now a rank zero, the ultimate ranking position you could strive for.

(Hell, you could rank on top of organic search, and the Answer Box will still nick your traffic!)

Unfortunately, getting it isn’t easy.

Or is it?

Because, for one, knowing which keywords already trigger the answer box could help you improve your relevant pages, and take over the feature box.

And so, as part of the comparison, I checked which rank trackers report on featured snippets in rankings.

And this is where things get really tricky. Because all the tools show the featured snippet icon, denoting that a particular keyword fires off the Answer Box. Then some of them allow to dig deeper and filter results by this rank type.

So to take it from the top, Moz, Ahrefs, SEMrush and RankRanger denote featured snippet in ranking reports, allowing you to identify keywords that trigger the answer box. 

The cool thing about SEMrush featured snippet report is that it is unique in the market. It significantly speeds up your workflow of getting into featured snippets in two ways: result analysis and opportunities search.

Featured-Snippets-in-SEMrush

First, based on your keyword list, you get the list of all your pages that got you to featured snippet for any location or device that you target.

At the same time, in the other tab, you get all the keywords that you did not gain a featured snippet rank for, but your competitors did. In the table, you can see at once the keywords AND the specific URL from the snippet. This feature allows you to quickly analyze why a particular page gained on the FS ranking and therefore how to improve your own page. Also, by putting priorities to your pages that got to the top-20 SERP positions, it’s easy to strategically plan your work.

RankRanger provides a dedicated featured snippet report as well, including the information about keywords, domains, and landing pages that trigger the answer box.

    Featured-Snippets-in-Rankranger

Verdict: A tie between RankRanger and SEMrush

#8. Data Update Frequency
Given how fast rankings can change, it is crucial that you have access to the most current data.

Spotting unusual rankings fluctuation might help you identify and overcome a bigger issue if the problem was left unattended.

For that reason alone, I prefer an instant data update, rather than a delayed one. And so, as part of the process, I checked the intervals at which I could have my data delivered by the rank trackers.

But to my surprise, there are huge discrepancies with data update frequency between those products.

SE Ranking, SEMrush and RankRanger provide daily rankings.

From SEMrush’s website:

SEMrush’s website

RankRanger

Data-frequency-on-Rankranger

Moz reports on your search positions only once a week.

SE Ranking, on the other hand, allows you to specify your desired frequency, and choose to receive the data every day, once in 3 days or weekly. Note that the frequency you choose will affect your price, with daily reports costing you more, and weekly slashing your cost by as much as 40%.

Data-frequency-on-SEranking

Finally, Ahrefs ties frequency to price plans. The higher plan you choose, the faster you’ll receive your data.

Data-frequency-on-Ahrefs

Verdict: RankRanger provides the best value for the money here. But it’s worth mentioning that SE Ranking allows to select the frequency on all plans, and customize it to your needs. 

#9. Alerts
In case something unusual happens to the rankings one would like to know the cause behind it, identify the problem in detail and take adequate measures to eradicate the problem.

Unfortunately, the only rank tracker that offers the ability to set up alerts, and receive emails when rankings change is SEMrush.

Setting-up-Alerts-in-SEMrush

That said, I admit that this is hands down an incredible feature, allowing SEOs to become more proactive, rather than reactive to changes and potential issues with rankings.

Verdict: SEMrush, undoubtedly.

Note: This is a different functionality from weekly (or daily, monthly, etc.) ranking update reports that most tools offer.

#10. Reports
It doesn’t matter if you’re an in-house SEO or work for an agency, at some point you’ll have to issue reports to prove your work. Although agency folk might do it more often, it’s a feature we all need.

Most of the rank trackers I compared offer the ability to create PDF reports. The only exception in the list is Ahrefs. It does not offer any reporting functionality.

With others, however, there are some differences regarding the type of reports you can create.

SEMrush allows to create a standard PDF report that you can schedule to receive regularly. 

Create-PDF-repost-in-SEMrush

You can also customize the look and content of the PDF, adding data from other SEMrush tools with a simple drag and drop interface.

Add-custom-data-to-the-SEmrush-report

Many of those elements allow you to bring in custom data and reports created specifically for this report, making it an invaluable tool for marketers and agencies that need to provide more context for the ranking report.

Moz offers custom reports too, and allows to schedule and annotate them.

Create-PDF-report-in-Moz

SE Ranking includes a template builder, allowing you to create various templates for your reports, depending on your requirements.

Create-PDF-report-in-SEranking

Finally, RankRanger offers an option to create white-labelled reports, customize the cover page, and customize predefined PDF templates.

Create-PDF-report-in-Rankranger

Closing Thoughts
As SEOs, we all have different objectives – increasing overall rankings, showing up in the Answer Box, boosting local presence among others. However, the rankings, like I said, are the best indicators of SEO progress.

And we need to use a tool offering functionality that can help us achieve it.

I hope this detailed comparison helps you identify the most effective tool to reach your own SEO goals.

Disclaimers:
First, I signed up for and used demo trials of each tool. As a result, there is a possibility that certain functionality I may highlight as lacking in a particular app was simply blocked in the trial version.

Second, the results of this comparison are entirely subjective and based on my expectations for a rank tracker.

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How To Find Non HTTPS Contents Of Your Website Using The Google Canary Browser

Is HTTPS really necessary for a blog or a website?

You should stop asking this question now as it has become essential to use HTTPS. Not just for SEO, but also for your user experience. In a recent blog post by the Google security team, Google made it clear that starting July 2018, with the release of a new Chrome version, it will start treating all HTTP site as not secure.

Not-secure-website

In my earlier posts, I have shared a lot of information about HTTPS and how you can set the same for your blog. In case if you have still not moved to HTTPS and need to learn more about it, start with the following blog posts:

Why should you move from HTTP to HTTPS? – Beginners Guide

Did you lose traffic after migrating to HTTPS – Here’s how to fix it

How to enable HTTPS on a BlogSpot blog

All those using Bluehost, SiteGround, Kinsta or similar high-quality hosting, can easily add free SSL. I have shared the guide for setting up free SSL on Bluehost here.

One major issue that most of us face while migrating from HTTP to HTTPS is mixed content. This usually happens when you are use a third party script, which continue to use the HTTP protocol. The challenge is to identify such scripts and links which are served on HTTP. For WordPress bloggers,  this guide will help you fix this issue. However, if you use any other platform or even WordPress and are unable to identify the content which is served over HTTP, I have a new solution for you.

This one is from the Google Chrome team and something most developers and bloggers using Mac will love. There is a different version of Google Chrome – called Canary – which is targeted at developers and webmasters for testing their site . I have been playing with it for a while and this is something you must know to test your site in various aspects. In this tutorial, I will focus on helping you set up the Canary browser to check your website for mixed content. I’m writing this tutorial on a Mac OS system. They also have a chrome extension which can be used with a chrome browser that you can download from here.

How to use Google Canary browser for website testing, including finding mixed content

First things first, Canary can be run simultaneously with the existing Chrome browser.

To get started, you need to download and install Canary browser from here.  For this audit, we will be using Lighthouse, an open source tool by Google for website audit. Wondering what Lighthouse is? Check this official page or just read on:

Lighthouse is an open-source, automated tool for improving the quality of web pages. You can run it on any web page, public or requiring authentication. It has audits for performance, accessibility, progressive web apps, and more. You can run Lighthouse in Chrome DevTools, from the command line, or as a Node module. You give Lighthouse a URL to audit, it runs a series of audits against the page, and then it generates a report on how well the page did. From there, use the failing audits as indicators on how to improve the page. Each audit has a reference doc explaining why the audit is important, as well as how to fix it.

Alright, now we have an understanding so let’s get on with rest of the tutorial.

Download and install NPM package from here. (Simple GUI installer)

The next step is to install Lighthouse by using the command line. Open Terminal on your Mac or Linux system and run this command to install Lighthouse.

npm install -g lighthouse

If you get an error stating “Please try running this command as root/administrator”, it means you are not logged in as the root user. Just prefix sudo in the command and Lighthouse should be installed.

install-lighthouse-using-command-line

Once Lighthouse is installed, simply run the command to view the report. Replace ShoutMeLoud.com with the name of your website.

lighthouse --mixed-content https://www.shoutmeloud.com --view

This is what the report looks like:

Lighthouse-mixed-content-finder-chrome

In the above screenshot, you can see that our score is 100 and we have no mixed content issue. This is how it should be for your site.

To explore Lighthouse and Canary, you can also run other commands to audit your website or your client’s. Here is the command:

lighthouse --view https://www.shoutmeloud.com

This will create a comprehensive report and will give you a bird’s eye view of what’s going on with your site loading speed and other important aspects like SEO.

Canary-lighthouse-website-audit

Running this command helped me identify many performances and accessibility related issues which are not possible to discover otherwise. You can read more about SEO category in Lighthouse report here.

You can also find the list of all available commands by running the following command in the terminal:

lighthouse --help

There are many other GUI tools which let you do that. However, this one is free and from Google which adds more reliability to the report. You should use Lighthouse once a month to test any existing issues and start fixing them one by one. Even if you are not a developer, this will help you improve your website usability and SEO score.

Go ahead and test this out. I look forward to hearing your score in the comment section below. If you like this tutorial, share it with other webmasters and developers to help them learn something new.

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ShoutUniversity & SML Store Anniversary Sale is Live [Act Fast]

ShoutUniversity & SML Store Anniversary Sale is Live [Act Fast]

The last week of November is always exciting for buyers and sellers. As buyers, this the time of year when we should purchase everything that we need for the next one year.

Why?

Because this is the week of Black Friday & Cyber Monday. That means you will get a maximum possible discount on many products available online.

Taking this time as an opportunity to thank you and other Shouters who have been a part of this journey, on December 1 we are celebrating our 9th anniversary and to share this joy with you, we are running a week-long discount.

I have created a special landing page for you to find all the exciting deals & discounts on popular products. Even though I have listed all popular Black Friday deals, it would be incomplete if we didn’t offer discounts on our own products!

Well, here is our exciting Black Friday deal:

ShoutUniversity: Structured video courses and guides to learn WordPress, affiliate marketing, AdSense, and much more.
ShoutMeLoud Blogging Store: Complete with eBooks, plugins, and more.
I would suggest you first read our ShoutUniversity deal and then read the ShoutMeLoud store deal.

ShoutUniversity Cyber Monday Deal: Bundle + Bonus for $78
This year we are doing something unique with ShoutUniversity. We are giving away the complete package for only $78 (Payment via PayPal, Stripe, or Instamojo)… but with a twist. If you buy ShoutUniversity right now, you will get all of our ShoutMeLoud blogging products as a bonus.

Yeah! You heard that right. This is our second Black Friday sale, and I want it to be as good as it possible for our valued readers like you.



Here is what you will get if you purchase ShoutUniversity before the sale ends on the 1st December @ midnight (IST):

1 1/2-year subscription to ShoutUniversity
ShoutMeLoud Affiliate Marketing eBook
ShoutMeLoud WordPress Guide eBook
List of high-quality blogs that allows guest posting (various niches)
Google AdSense eBook
 Join ShoutUniversity + Get All Bonuses
Order from Instamojo here

The deal is already live & it will expire soon. (The discount will be applied automatically.)

ShoutMeLoud Blogging Store: 50% off


But if you don’t want to purchase everything, you can get 50% off and the price has been updated on the site. This is another unique opportunity that will only last for a limited time.

Start date: Live
End date: 1st December 2017
Coupon: No coupon require
 Save 50% at ShoutMeLoud Blogging Store
Note: If you are buying the Affiliate Marketing eBook from Instamojo (for Indian residents), use this direct link for a 50% discount.

Hurry up! You only have a limited time to take advantage of this offer!

Don’t forget to share this post and let your friends know about this deal!

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Join The Biggest Giveaway in The History of Blogging by ShoutMeLoud

Join The Biggest Giveaway in The History of Blogging by ShoutMeLoud

he time is now!

Thanks for being a part of the 9th year of ShoutMeLoud’s journey and welcome to the biggest giveaways in the history of blogging. To celebrate this moment of joy, and with our mission of helping you become your own boss, we are hosting a mega giveaway of blogging and marketing tools that you can win.

These tools are worth more than $10000 and this is the first time ever since ShoutMeLoud came into being. We brought together our friends and partners to contribute to the ShoutMeLoud blogging community and there are tools that you can win in this giveaway.

Shortpixels (12k Images/month) (Yearly plan)
PushEngage Yearly plan
WPAdvanced Ads Pro
TubeBuddy
ShoutUniversity
ShoutMeLoud Store
Bluehost
HostGator
OptinMonster
WPForms
ElegantThemes
SocialPilot
SEMRUSH
AgoraPulse
We can have 70 individual winners thus giving you a great chance to get your hands on the prize. Read this giveaway post carefully to enter and win what you desire.

The contest will be run on various platforms of ShoutMeLoud, including the forum. You can participate in one or all of them to have a shot at winning the contest. Here is the breakdown of the number of possible winners on different platforms:

ShoutMeLoud Blog: 28 prizes
ShoutMeLoud Social Media: 28 prizes
ShoutMeLoud Forum: 14 prizes
How to participate & win the mega giveaway:
Any new or existing reader of ShoutMeLoud can participate in our 9th anniversary mega giveaway. For those new here, ShoutMeLoud turned 9 on 1st December 2017. We have also rebranded with a new design and logo. You can read all about it here.

Here is how to participate:

Browse through ShoutMeLoud.com’s new design and share your constructive feedback and ideas by adding a comment below.
In the comment do emphasize on How ShoutMeLoud has impacted your life. If you are new here, you can share why you blog.
Also, pick any 3 tools from the above list that you would like to win. Based on your selection and the availability, one of what you choose will be provided.
Complete the tasks using the widget below.

Choosing the winners:
The winners will be selected based on their contribution.

Step 1. Browse our ShoutMeLoud blog new design and visit various sections such as store, deals, pages and others.
Step 2. Comment on this thread with answers to the following:


Your take on the new design. Feedback and other constructive ideas and suggestions.
How has ShoutMeLoud affected your life and what more do you expect from ShoutMeLoud in 2018?
Pick any 3 things from the list above that you would like to win.
Note: Use the comment section below to tell us what you feel and what you expect from ShoutMeLoud. The contest starts now and will end on December 24, 2017. We will announce the winners on Christmas eve and will distribute the prizes on the same day.

I’m celebrating @ShoutMeLoud 9th anniversary & participating in the biggest #Blogging giveaway….
CLICK TO TWEET

Do feel free to ask questions if any.

Best of luck!

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ShoutMeLoud Won The Best Indian Blogger Awards of The Year 2017

ShoutMeLoud Won The Best Indian Blogger Awards of The Year 2017

Today is the last day of the year 2017 and when I woke up in the morning, I was greeted with a great news. It was a tweet from one of the readers congratulating me for an award. I was surprised as well as felt something special is coming.
After few seconds of browsing, I got to know that Indiblogger has announced the winner of their 2017 blog awards and here it is:

ShoutMeLoud won the best blog award in more than 1 category.

Best Blog Award in Blogging Category

Best Blog Award in SEO Category

This award was conducted by Indiblogger which is one of the popular Blogging community of India and has been online for more than 10 years.

The-Indian-blogger-award-2017

This was the second time IndiBlogger team have conducted this award. Last time it was in 2013, and we won an award back then as well. You can read about the earlier award here.



They have done a good job by picking up some of the hidden gems with this award. Such awards help people to find the blogs which are worth seeing. You can see the list of all other blogs who have won the award over here.

Few last words before we bid goodbye to 2017:
2017 has been a milestone year for ShoutMeLoud and this news couldn’t have come at a better time. Just a few weeks back, we have launched the newer version of ShoutMeLoud and since then we have been super busy listening and tweaking the design and layout to give the best user experience to you. There are many new developments happening behind the hood and 2018 is going to be an amazing year for all of us. Will continue to deliver my best and it will be fun to see how life unfolds. 🙏🏻

Thank you, everyone, who has been a part of this journey and those who have grown together.

If you like you can use this pre-populated tweet to let the Twitter world know about this win.

My favorite blog @ShoutMeLoud by @denharsh won the best blog award by @indiblogger #IBA2017
CLICK TO TWEET

Thank you and best wishes for 2018.

Happy new year!

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Best Blogging Apps For Mac Users: 2018 Edition

Best Blogging Apps For Mac Users: 2018 Edition

I’m a huge fan of desktop tools that can help me in blogging and increase my productivity.

I prefer desktop tools over online because with desktop tools, I can work without the internet. Working without the internet is especially useful because of how distracted I get when I try to write online. I end up opening at least 10-15 tabs and forgetting that I’m supposed to be writing!

If you also have the same condition as me, I suggest you start using software that can let you work offline. I know it’s hard to unplug from the internet, but if you do it once, you will notice the increased productivity that comes with this.

You will be able to do much more work in much less time.

I have compiled this list of the best blogging apps for Mac. These are all apps I currently use and you should also consider using them to increase your productivity.

(Note: Not all of them work offline…)

Best Blogging Software for Mac OS
Desk for Desktop Publishing-

desk Mac writing app

The very first thing that I like about Desk is it’s a Mac app for writers.

I first tried Desk recently and I was surprised by all the features it offered.

I particularly love the feature that allows you to save the draft into the iCloud drive. From the iCloud, you can edit your draft from your iPhone or iPad. Desk integrates with all the major blogging platform such as WordPress, BlogSpot, Tumblr, and Typepad (to name a few).


This is one writing and blogging app that I highly recommend to you and for any other writer/blogger on Mac OS.

Download Desk from App store ($19.99)

Blogo

Blogo Blogging App for Mac

If you are in search of an alternative to Open Live Writer or Desk App for Mac, you should go ahead and get this little beast.

This is one app you will love if you are blogging on the WordPress platform. The current version supports only WordPress, but the Blogo team promised to bring Tumblr and BlogSpot support soon.

moderate WordPress comments desktop

With Blogo, you can write offline and publish a post directly from your desktop. Use Blogo on your Mac, iPhone or iPad & it all syncs up perfectly. You can also add images, assign a featured image, and live preview your post before publishing.

Download Blogo from Mac App store
Download Blogo for iPhone & iPad (Free)
Snag It


Subscribe on Youtube


Taking screenshots is part of our day to day blogging work and we need to edit the image and resize it before adding it to our blog post.

Snag It is an image editing tool that I have been using for last two years. This is a complete Mac image editing app that will take care of all your image needs. This is a premium tool, but you can download it for free for 30 days.

Once you start using the Snag It app, you will be hooked.

Check out the above video to learn how I use Snag It.

Download Snag It!

ImageOptim

Imageoptim Mac Image Compressor

A good post is incomplete without a good image. But before you add an image to your post, you need to compress it so that the image isn’t so large.

The smaller the size of the image, the faster your blog post will load. In the past, I have made the mistake of not optimizing my images, and they were as big as 1MB. Imagine if a post takes more than 10 seconds to load, would you wait around that long? Probably not.

With the internet world moving to smartphones, the goal is to make blogs load as fast as possible. Optimization of images is crucial in page load speed.

ImageOptim is a free image compression tool for Mac, and I have already talked about it earlier.

This lightweight app will help you optimize all of your images. Simply drag and drop the image on the ImageOptim workspace and it will do the compression automatically. This is a free app, and you can download it right now.

Download ImageOptim

Camtasia

Camtasia Mac Video Blogging app

Video blogging is now a main-stream part of blogging, and it’s important for you to create videos for your blog.

If you are doing a white-board kind of video, you can use your DSLR camera or even your Smartphone camera. But if you want to do a video like the one I have embedded above (Screencasts), you need a video app that will let you capture, edit, and publish your screencast videos.

Camtasia is the best available video app for Mac, which every blogger and internet marketer should use. Again, this is a paid tool, but you can download it for free and try it for 30 days.

This is a seriously must-have Mac app for video bloggers.

Download Camtasia for free

Mac FTP tool (CyberDuck) + (FileZilla)

CyberDuck Mac FTP App

Being a blogger, you must have your own server where your website is hosted on. Chances are you will need to login to your FTP server at times to make changes.

It’s important that you have some kind of FTP software. There are various FTP apps for Mac, and I will suggest two of them:

Cyberduck
FileZilla
You can use either of these FTP tools and both work great.

They are very lightweight and designed for efficiency. You can save your FTP login info within the tool for an even greater increase in productivity.

I personally prefer Cyberduck, but if you moved from Windows to Mac and have used FileZilla before, you will probably like using the same tool now.

Download CyberDuck || Download FileZilla

Integrity

integrity broken link app

This app is more like an SEO toolkit for your Mac OS.

It scans all the links of your blog and shows you which links are broken.

The best part is that it works with any blogging platform. If you are on WordPress, you can always use a broken link checker, but if you have a huge site, the broken link checker might end up freezing your hosting.

This is one reason I started using Integrity. You can read this tutorial to learn how to use integrity. It’s a free app, and you can download it for free from the Mac App store.

Download Integrity

WordPress app for Mac

WordPress mac app

WordPress launched an official Mac app that works for WordPress.com blogs or self-hosted WordPress blogs using the Jetpack plugin.

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Shouter’s Friday Podcast, Ep. 001: Improving Writing Skills, Creating A Team, Getting Sponsorships

Shouter’s Friday Podcast, Ep. 001: Improving Writing Skills, Creating A Team, Getting Sponsorships

Welcome to the first ever Shouter’s Friday with Harsh Agrawal’s podcast. This is a new show that we are coming up with in order to answer all the questions that Shouters from around the world have.

In this new podcast, we pick top questions from the ShoutMeloud Bloggers’ Forum and answer them in detail.

For this podcast, we have Chatty Sharma as the co-host. Chatty is a fellow Shouter who is curious and full of questions about blogging and online marketing.

In this first episode of Shouter’s Friday, we answer various questions related to improving writing skills, creating a good team, getting sponsorships for your blog, and much more.


Subscribe to iTunes | Podbean

Show Notes: Improving Writing Skills, Creating A Team, Getting Sponsorships
[00:59] – How can I make myself a great blog writer like Harsh Agrawal?
[08:05] – What should I do with my second site?
[15:44] – How do I create a team?
[21:01] – How much time do you need to wait for everything to settle after switching to https?
[27:08] – How can I get sponsors for my giveaways?
Resources for this episode
ShoutMeLoud Forum – Mingle with the Shouter community.
Grammarly – Correct basic grammar and spelling mistakes.
Sedo – Buy and sell websites.
ContentMart – Hire content writers.
Google Search Console – Submit sitemap and check rankings.
Thought of the week
Focus on your strengths and your weaknesses will go away naturally!

Catch you next Friday
If you have question that you want answers to in the next episode of Shouter’s Friday, just log on to the ShoutMeLoud Bloggers’ Forum and ask!

Subscribe and Comment
Love this podcast?

Rate us on iTunes and leave a review!
Subscribe to us on iTunes to receive podcast updates in your email.
Follow us on YouTube to stay up-to-date with the latest SML stuff!
If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments section below. Nothing gives me greater joy than helping out my readers!

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Top 7 Content Upgrade Ideas To Get Targeted Email Subscribers

Top 7 Content Upgrade Ideas To Get Targeted Email Subscribers

If you’re not building an email list for your business, you’re missing out a lot.

Sorry to be so blunt, but it’s true.

Your email list is one of the most valuable assets you have as an online marketer.

From my research, I’ve realized that the primary reason why email marketing seems daunting to most people is that they just don’t know how to do it.

You have a sign-up form on the sidebar of your blog, and maybe even at the end of each post you publish. But what’s your conversion rate? I’m guessing it’s pretty low.

Getting poor conversion rates after spending so much time creating an incentive to give away can be demotivating. Sometimes, that’s what makes some people to say that email marketing doesn’t work.

But there are a lot of really smart ways to build and maintain an email list. You just need to be creative.

Today, I’ll talk to you about one great list building method:

Content upgrades.
Content upgrades are not particularly new, but they drive large conversion rates.

But creating a good content upgrade can be difficult.


That’s why I’ve compiled the 7 best content upgrade ideas to keep your readers interested and engaged with your blog.

But before we get into that, let me quickly explain what a content upgrade is.

A content upgrade is an enhanced lead magnet that adds an “upgrade” to the content that is being consumed. They’re meant to compliment and add in even more value in exchange for a user’s email address.

Best Content Upgrade Ideas
1. Checklists

This is one of the most popular forms of content upgrades. A checklist consists of actionable steps a reader needs to follow to quickly implement what has just been read.

Let’s say you wrote a 4,000+ word article on link building; you can create a checklist that contains the most important steps a user needs to go through to launch their link building campaign.

It can also be a list of all the materials and tools the reader will need to build a link.

It does not have to be anything complex; in fact, you should make it as simple and straightforward as possible.

Here’s a perfect example from backlinko.com:

Exclusive Bonus

If you click on the link, it will pop up a form where you will have to enter your name and email address in order to access the checklist.

How To Boost Conversions

Tools to easily create checklists: Forgett, Sweet Process, and Checkli

Check out: How To Create A Checklist In PDF Format For Content Upgrades

2. Audio Recording of the Article

Your readers are also busy people, and most of them like consuming information through different mediums.

Creating an audio version of your blog posts is a really good idea.

Your audience may want to listen to your blog post while sitting in traffic!

By offering your blog post as an audio file, your audience can download it and listen to it whenever they want.

But in order to do this effectively, you need to make sure you have a decent quality microphone and a clear, good speaking voice. You can always hire someone from freelancing sites to convert your articles into audio.



Listen to above audio to understand how effective it is. Especially when your readers are traveling or driving a car, such audio content is a blessing.

3. Additional Tools and Resources

Assuming you’ve mentioned many tools and resources in your article, you can make a big list of all those tools and provide links to them. This will save your readers lots of time so they won’t have to go searching for each of them independently.

Convert this list into a PDF, and offer it for download on the post as a content upgrade.

4. A Cheat Sheet

A cheat sheet is simply a concise set of notes used for quick reference.

For example, let’s say I wrote a post explaining different search engine ranking factors, I could create a one page PDF mentioning all of these ranking factors with a quick summary.

This is a great method of hooking readers because it simplifies a lot of complex information.

5. PDF Version of Post

A lot of bloggers also use this as a content upgrade because it’s easy to create.

Let’s imagine a situation where you wrote an ultimate guide about something which is 10,000 words long.

You know that some people will not have the time to finish such a post in one sitting, so turning it into a downloadable PDF in exchange for your reader’s email address is a great idea.

This will enable them to download the post and read it later at their convenience.

You can do this with a tool like Leadpages.

-55 How to Create a Survey to Find Your Target Market Amy Porterfield

Image source: amyporterfield.com

6. A Quick Start Guide

Have you ever purchased an item and discovered inside the box a small pamphlet titled “Users Manual” or “Quick Start Guide”?

That’s usually the most valuable guide in the box because it’s the only thing that will walk you through how to use/set up the item.

If you’re writing a blog post that is complex or gigantic in nature, you could offer a simple guide about how to use a particular tool, or a guide that will simplify a particularly challenging topic.

All you might need is a simple collection of pictures or videos, and a reader will not hesitate to give you their email address.

7. Templates

This is another excellent content upgrade.

Do you have an easy to copy email formula that you use to pitch influencers for guest posting opportunities?

You can quickly turn that into a template and use it to collect emails.

BONUS Content Upgrade Ideas
BONUS 1. Swipe File

A swipe file consists of some resources you often refer to while working on a particular task.

If you’re a copywriter, you could have some good headlines you use for inspiration while writing copy. This can also serve as a content upgrade.

Here’s a good example of a swipe file content upgrade from videofruit.com:

Lead Magnets 11 Ways to Get More Subscribers VideofruitLead Magnet 11 Ways To Turn Readers Into Subscribers

BONUS 2. A Teaser

I’ve also seen lots of people using this method.

Maybe you’ve just created an eBook or an eCourse…

Giving your readers a few chapters of the product will make for a good content upgrade, and they will appreciate you for it by giving you their email address.

It will also help you to sell the full copy of the course to them later on.

Content Upgrades and Collecting Emails
List building is important if you want to become a successful internet marketer. This is why we all need to take list building more seriously by utilizing all of the proven techniques.

I’m aware that offering a content upgrade is extra work, but if you consider the returns it’ll bring, you would be wise to not ignore it.

Remember, nothing worthwhile comes easily.

Hopefully, this post has given you enough ideas to start creating your own content upgrades.

What kind of content upgrades do you offer on your blog? What’s the most successful kind of content upgrade that’s been working for you? How do you collect emails? Share your experience in the comments!

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How To Create Drip Campaign Emails That Get Opened And Read

How To Create Drip Campaign Emails That Get Opened And Read

A lot of your subscribers follow different blogs. So don’t be surprised if they forget about your blog by the end of the month.

With tons of content on the web, I bet some of your subscribers only visit your site once a month, or once every few months, or maybe even never.

When faced with this dilemma, how do you keep your blog in your subscribers’ radar? How do you make sure that they keep coming back for more?

If you answered “write more interesting blog posts in the hopes that my subscribers will miraculously discover my content”, then you don’t exactly have the right idea.

These days, if you want subscribers to be informed and updated, try a simple email. No, we’re not talking about just any email. Think drip campaign emails that are meant to nurture your subscribers for a period of time.

Say, WHAAAT?

For the uninitiated, “drip campaigns” are a series of emails that contain marketing information which are meant to acquire customers. These emails are sequenced and sent over a period of time.

If you’ve ever seen a series of promotional emails hanging out in your inbox, then chances are they’te part of a drip email campaign.

Why Should You Start A Drip Campaign For Your Blog?
If you want your subscribers to remember your blog, then drip campaigns are the way to go. A good drip campaign can improve conversions, increase CTRs (click-through rates), and drive a lot of traffic to your site.

In fact, when KANA software used drip campaigns to nurture their leads, Pardot found that its site visits from drip emails lasted an average of 3:02 compared with a 1:56 average time visit for their usual traffic. In addition, submission rates increased on their landing pages (34.19 vs 2.63).


The point is that if you’re not creating a drip campaign, then you’re missing out on A LOT.

So, how do you get started?

Today’s blog post will focus on how to create your own drip campaigns.

How To Create A Drip email Campaign
1. Set your objectives.

Set your objectives

This is a really important step. If you don’t know the objectives of your campaign, then how will you assess if your campaign succeeds or fails? How can you measure your progress? How can you determine if your campaign is making a change?

One thing you should do when determining your objectives is to keep your purpose in mind.

Ask yourself:

What is the point of this campaign?
What do I want my readers to do as a result of my email campaign?
How will these emails impact my readers?
How will I get my readers to act?
From the start, you need to know the answers to these questions so that you can formulate objectives that are on-point.

After that, choose the type of drip campaign that will match with your campaign’s objectives. In the effort of saving time, I’ll refer you to the following guides:

11 Must-Try Lead Nurturing Campaigns
7 Steal-Worthy Drip Campaign Examples (And Why They Work)
2. Determine your drip sequence.

Determine your drip sequence

When you create an email campaign, you don’t expect your campaign to start and end with one email. After all, you don’t expect subscribers to become paying customers overnight. In reality, you need to convince them that your content or product is worth it after a few more emails.

But, what would you talk about in the first, second, third, or fourth email?

How should you arrange these emails?

The first thing that you need to remember is that these emails serve as a path. The purpose of these emails is to get your subscribers to act. Whether it’s buying your product or reading your tips, the bottom line is that you want your readers to take action.

Let’s say your drip campaign is to encourage your subscribers to take a course. Take a look at this drip sequence of marketer Neil Patel for his Advanced Marketing Program:

Email 1: Monique: BREAKING NEWS
Email 2: Join in on my weekly marketing calls (Urgent: Closing today)
Email 3: 4 hours left… final reminder
Since the objective of the campaign is to get readers to join before the deadline, Neil Patel sends emails regularly to ensure that his subscribers are well-aware.

The bottom line is that you need to create a sequence that will encourage your customers to take action.

3. Write an irresistible subject line.

Write an irresistible subject line

The subject line is one of the most important elements of an email. After all, if you don’t get readers immediately hooked, what are the chances that they will click your email? How will your email marketing campaign compete with the dozens of other emails that they normally receive? How will you make a good impression?

The answer:

An irresistible subject line.

The first step towards an ideal subject line is authenticity. If you’re not sure where to start, then begin by addressing customers by their names. This will add a personal touch. Here are some good examples from the emails I’ve received from Neil Patel:

Monique: ONE DAY ONLY
Monique, Thank you for everything!
How would you feel seeing these subject lines? I bet you’d feel a little touched since these emails feel like they’re made just for you.

Some subject lines don’t stand out because they’re personal; instead, they’re smart and witty. After all, everyone loves a good laugh. Check out some of these examples:

Baby Bump: “Yes, I’m Pregnant. You Can Stop Staring at My Belly Now.”
Groupon: “Deals That Make Us Proud (Unlike Our Nephew, Steve)
These subject lines will surely grab your attention.

So, what’s the moral of the story?

You should write subject lines that can make your readers stop and take an interest in your email.

4. Write a compelling message.

Write a compelling message

Now it’s time to start with the most challenging part: Writing the email.

To make sure your emails get read, it’s important to keep them short and sweet.

In fact, according to Boomerang, emails with a 50% response rate have an estimated number of 50 to 125 words and a subject line of 3 to 4 words. Not surprisingly, since your subscribers don’t have the time to read long emails, it’s important to construct an email that they can understand with skimming.

Try to use words that matter. Talk about:

What makes your content special?
Why should your subscribers read your content?
How will your content make their life better?
Make sure that you use a conversational tone.

Let them know you’re providing a solution.

But don’t forget to come up with a creative and compelling copy.

Here’s an example of a compelling email from the weekly Sunday Inspiration Emails of The Muse.



The copy “THE BEST OF THE WEB” is short, but it reveals a lot about the content of the email. In addition, the words “Work Hard” and “Live Smart” let readers know that their recommended articles are either advice for work or for life. 

5. Include a killer CTA.

Include a killer CTA

The end goal of every email is to get readers to click THE BUTTON.

And by “the button”, we mean the Call-To-Action (CTA) button.

So, how do you get your readers to act on your CTA?

The first step is to use action-oriented words. Since CTAs are supposed to get your subscribers to act, then you need to use language that can get them to act at that moment.

Here are some examples:

Subscribe Now!
Buy
Visit The Website
The second step is to make sure that it’s noticeable. This doesn’t mean that your CTA should be big, bold, and red. CTAs can be any size and any color.

But it can’t be ignored.

If your readers can see the CTA once they open the email, then it’s good.

Here’s an example of a killer CTA by SitePoint. The CTA isn’t that big, bold, or red, but it’s hard to miss.

Example of a killer CTA

Plan Your Drip Campaign
Now that you know what it takes to create a drip campaign, it’s time to start planning your own campaign.

Don’t worry if the process feels a little bit overwhelming. Just master the basics and you’ll get better with time and effort.

Overall, write emails that you would want to read. Be interesting, and be creative.

So, what’s the drip campaign that you want to create? Let us know by commenting down below!

Here are some more email marketing posts to check out:

Why Are Your E-mail Subscribers Inactive? 12 Solutions (with Templates)
3 More Free Email Capture Tools To Grow Your Subscribers 😀
Top 7 Content Upgrade Ideas To Get Targeted Email Subscribers
7 Email Subscription Box Placement Ideas That Are Proven To Work
6 Best AWeber Alternative For Email Marketing in 2017

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Why Email Marketing Will Dominate 2018

EMAIL MARKETING 

Why Email Marketing Will Dominate 2018

1st Feb, 2018  Palash Bagchi   19 Comments 

According to Radicati Research, worldwide email accounts have grown to 4.9 billion in 2017, and worldwide email users to 2.7 billion.

Needless to say, email marketing is still the easiest and most economic channel for reaching out to prospects. Active email users spend more time reading and responding to emails than they do on their breakfast or shower.

When compared to other marketing channels, emails remain in the inbox of subscribers and can be read or clicked repeatedly without additional costs per impression.

Let me tell you why this is important, how you can harness its power, and why email marketing will dominate 2018.

Email marketing will dominate 2018. Here's what can you do to harness its power.

CLICK TO TWEET

Why Email Marketing Is Important

Tell me honestly:

What percentage of your marketing budget do you spend on SEO, social marketing, PPC, and email?

Have you given importance to learning and applying improved performance tactics for SEO, social marketing, PPC, and email equally?

The way you measure conversions or even attribution metrics from SEO, social marketing, and PPC, have you also measured your returns from email?

Here is a traffic analysis of a very popular blog that receives 3.9M visits per month and generates an average monthly revenue of $32K.

Traffic Analysis

Traffic Analysis

Now, let’s analyze the traffic sources so as to guess how much is spent on each channel.

SEO generates 2.9 million visits per month, which costs around $7,000 for quality resources and tools. Email, on the other hand, generates 82.2K visits per month from 23K subscribers for $199.

email marketing

Traffic Sources

Marketing Strategy

Is it unwise increase focus on email marketing, which will not only be cost effective but will provide a captive source of loyal visitors?

SEO visitors cannot be considered “loyal” since they visit your blog when it’s required for them to do so, and only if your content ranks on page 1 of the search engines.

Building a loyal subscriber base is a very smart thing to do. Do not let them get away without passing on their email id.

Learn the smartest and most effective ways of how to get 100K email subscribers.

Not all blogs can get immediate SEO optimization. Some will take years to get on the first few pages. So what can these blogs do to get traffic?

Getting traffic from email marketing is 20 times easier and 30 times cheaper than SEO. Plus, if you use good email automation tools, then your entire marketing can be handled without continuous efforts or resources.

Best Tactics For Email Marketing

Best Tactics For Email Marketing

What are the challenges that have created a reduced dependency on email marketing? Most marketers get frustrated with low open rates.

Here are some quick pointers for you to check and ensure that you get the most out of your campaign.

Don’t purchase an email list. Marketers are always in a haste when they start email marketing. Creating an opt-in subscriber list takes time while buying one is instant. But do not expect great results by purchasing email lists. These are almost sure to fail because these subscribers are not targeted and do not want to be getting your emails.

Use double opt-in instead of single opt-in. This is another reason you may be losing potential subscribers. Marketers fear a double opt-in may result in a user changing their mind and ultimately not subscribing. But remember that a subscriber who has entered an incorrect email id is never going to receive your email anyway. Why not cross check them with a double opt-in? This will ensure that everyone on your list really wants to be there.

Handle bounces. Many marketers use email marketing systems that do not handle unsubscribes from bounced email. They do not even maintain a suppression list. This can result in continuously sending email blasts to those users that have already bounced. This not only affects the open rates but also affects the domain’s reputation.

Make your emails consistent. Email marketing needs to have a structured and planned approach. Many times, marketers will take to their email campaign with energy, sending 5 emails to recipients in one week and then not sending anything for two weeks. The subscriber will either unsubscribe or will ignore such inconsistent email sending. Emails need to be sent consistently to develop a habit for the subscriber. Around 2-3 emails a week is a good frequency.

Purge inactive users. When your list has subscribers who have never opened your emails or have not opened your emails for quite a long time, it is always preferable to deactivate or purge them from active sending. Don’t get into the trap of thinking that a bigger number of subscribers is better. Your statistics will get messed up and you will lose motivation. Always keep your list active.

Avoid spam traps. A spam trap is an email address that’s not actively used, but is actively monitored. Many organizations like Spamhaus and SURBL, to security companies like TrendMicro and McAfee, to nationwide ISPs and corporate email servers maintain such spam traps to blacklist a sender since their email has never been used to subscribe to any service. Spam traps can really affect your sending domain’s reputation, and in some cases, they have reduced open rates by 20%!

Use a professional delivery server. It is always advisable to use a reputable, professional delivery server as such companies are active players in CANSPAM associations and are given safe passage by Spam Assassins.

Don’t use spam words in email content. This is another common mistake as many marketers are not aware of words that trigger spam filters. Many of these spam words are common and will not strike the sender as objectionable, but will get flagged as spam content.

Make your title attractive. Many email marketers do not give any importance to the email’s subject line. The subject line is as important as a pickup line! If it fails to attract the subscriber’s attention within a single glance, the subscriber will never open the email. Some common unattractive subject lines used while sending newsletters are “Newsletter Issue#33”, “Feb Newsletter”, etc. Learn how to write a great title.

Test your email’s technical capabilities. Marketers may not be aware of the technicality of the email and sending domain, but there are free tools out there to help you test your email on technical grounds like DKIM, SPF, Bounce Domain, HTML format, and other important things. Run a test of your email with such tools.

Check out:

Why Are Your E-mail Subscribers Inactive? 12 Solutions (with Templates)

How To Increase Email Open Rates By 50%

7 Sure-Fire Ways To Write Engaging Emails

On average, a mailbox receives 12 marketing or promotional emails every day, and 63% of these mails do not provide the content that the recipient is in need of. There are 205 billion messages sent every day, and the normal individual spends more than 20 hours every week on the web with more than two hours of that time spent in a hurry.

How do you ensure that your email is accounted for, read, and acted upon?

Advancement in email marketing

Personalization is the next advancement in email marketing.

Email personalization does not mean sending automatic email blasts with only the recipient’s {First Name} or {Company Name}. Email personalization means sending real-time emails to recipients with the right content at the right time, when it is still relevant.

This kind of email campaign will make sure that your content is engaging and relevant to a user.

When this happens, you subscriber will be happy to interact with your targeted, highly-engaging content.

Be on the lookout for more advancements in email personalization!

For now, I want to know what you are doing to make sure your list stays active. How much success are you having with your email list? What are you doing to maintain and optimize it? Let me know in the comments below.

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How To Migrate an Email List From Aweber To ConvertKit in a Few Easy Steps

How To Migrate an Email List From Aweber To ConvertKit in a Few Easy Steps

Migrating an email list from one service to another is not as simple as it seems. You need be very careful of certain factors to ensure that you don’t miss anything.

A few days back I talked about this new email marketing service (EMS) called ConvertKit & told you that I’m currently changing my EMS from Aweber to Convertkit.

Many of our regular readers asked us to document the whole process so that it would be easier for them too to do the same. Well, here it is.

I’m now sharing with you the complete process of how to move your entire email list from Aweber to ConvertKit.

I have also made a video that will help you understand the process better.

The video is embedded at the bottom of this tutorial.
Moving Email List from Aweber to ConvertKit:
If you have heard of Aweber but are still new to ConvertKit, I recommend you first read this post to give you an idea of how ConvertKit can improve your email marketing.

Here is an overview of the necessary steps:

Export the email list in .csv format on Aweber
Create a new tag with the same list name on ConvertKit
Import the list to ConvertKit & map the rows
Depending upon the size of your email list, it will take some time (potentially hours) to complete the entire process.

Firstly, login to your Aweber dashboard & click on “Manage Lists” at the top. Then, click on the list that you wish to export.

Manage Lists Aweber

On the next page, click on Subscribers > Manage Subscribers.


You can start right away exporting your list from here.

But before you do that, I suggest you clean your email list. Remove those subscribers who haven’t interacted with your emails in the last few months. If you are sending out emails regularly, remove people with over 5-6 months of inactivity.


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I have explained the process of cleaning & shared some information about why to remove inactive users in the above video. Do watch it, as it will help you make the most out of your email marketing strategies.
Once you have cleaned up your list, click on “Filters” on the left side & select “Currently Subscribed”.

Exporting email subscribers Aweber

This will bring up your refined list & it only includes subscribers who have confirmed their email addresses. At the bottom, you will find the option to “Export CSV,” click on it & your email list will be exported.

But before you start importing your email list to ConvertKit, you need to clean up the “unwanted columns”. These columns are things like “last follow-up”, “date added”, “ad tracking”, and many others field that you don’t require. So get rid of them.

delere unwanted column from email list

The only thing left to do is delete that list on Aweber.

IMPORTANT: You should do that only after successfully importing your list to ConvertKit.
This step will complete the Aweber portion of this tutorial.

Now, login to your new ConvertKit dashboard & follow the steps mentioned below.

Importing Email List to ConvertKit
One common question that you will have is, “Should I use segments, forms, or tags to import the list?” Well, this is where ConvertKit gets interesting & many people make mistakes in this part of the transition.

You should use tags to import a list. This way, it will be easier for you to manage & add marketing automation. I will explain this process in the next guide, but for now, let’s finish importing.

Click on Subscribers > Create Tag.

Create Tag Convertkit

Give the tag a meaningful name. Something that helps you to easily identify your list.

Click on “Save”.

Next, click on “Import Subscribers” on the right column, select the tags that you just created & drop your .csv file in the drop area.

Import Subscriber to Convertkit

The last step is to map the Columns to Fields.

Once you have done that, click on “Import Subscribers” at the bottom & the ConvertKit Importer will take care of the rest.

You will get an email once the import is done. In my case, it only took about one minute.

That’s it!

Now you can verify 1-2 users by going to “Subscribers” & search for 1-2 emails or names that you have in exported your .csv file. This is just to ensure that your list has been migrated properly. (I know this step is not so important, but honestly, I’m little paranoid when it comes to the integrity of my data.)

This is the same process if you’re importing a list from any other email services like GetResponse, InfusionSoft, or any other.  One thing that you should also do is import your sequence from Aweber to ConvertKit.  I will share a guide on “Sequence in ConvertKit” in an upcoming post.

As I mentioned before, here is the video tutorial:


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Are you planning to migrate your email list to ConvertKit? Have you already started? Do share your experience & any tips you would like to add about the process. I look forward to your comments!

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Christmas in July Get Free ConvertKit Email Marketing Tool [Limited Time]

Christmas in July Get Free ConvertKit Email Marketing Tool [Limited Time]

How does a month of a free email marketing tool sound to you?

Most bloggers start email marketing at a later stage of their career. But email marketing helps you to create a relationship with your subscribers, and helps you in growing your brand. Beginning bloggers would be wise to start growing their email lists as soon as possible.

In the past, I have written a lot about email marketing for beginners, and today I’m sharing an exclusive promo from ConvertKit that you can take advantage of right now.

ConvertKit is the email marketing tool I’m using for ShoutMeLoud. The best thing about ConvertKit is that it’s built by bloggers, for bloggers.

It’s suitable for beginners, and also for power users who want to take advantage of segmentation and tagging.

Read: ConvertKit For Beginners: Why I Switched From AWeber to ConvertKit
They also have a feature-rich WordPress plugin that helps you quickly collect an email list from your WordPress blog.

Their price starts at $29/month and grows as you grow your subscriber base.

However, you can get your first month free and try all the features of ConvertKit with no investment.

One Month Free Trial Account Of ConvertKit Email Marketing
ConvertKit is running a special promo in July 2017 in which they are offering a one-month free trial.

This promo will only last one week.


If you haven’t started email marketing or are planning to move from an existing email marketing software to ConvertKit, this is a great chance to get started.

You can see the offer page here

Free Trial Account Of ConvertKit

Even if you are new to email marketing, ConvertKit has got you covered. They do regular online webinars while offering tutorials to help you understand everything about email marketing and how to use ConvertKit to its full potential.

This “Christmas in July” promo will end on 31st July, and you will need to sign up for a free account using the special promo link.

The signup process is simple as all you need to do is provide your name, email, and payment info to get started.

If you have an email list of 5,000+ subscribers, the ConvertKit team will migrate it for you.

If you are moving your list yourself from AWeber to ConvertKit, you can read my guide here.

If for any reason you don’t want to continue after the trial period, you can contact them and ask for an account cancellation. This is easy to do right from your account dashboard.

ConvertKit Account Dashboard

Personally, I find ConvertKit to be a solid solution because of features like:

Auto-responder
A/B test email subject
Email tagging and automation
List segmentation
And ConvertKit doesn’t charge you for canceled email subscribers. Also, if one user is subscribed to multiple email lists in ConvertKit, they are still counted as one account, which lowers down your monthly fees.

Consider these next 30 days a great opportunity to try one of the best email marketing solutions for bloggers.

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